19 Dec 23 | Germany, Israel, News and features, Palestine, Russia, United States
The rules on what we can and cannot say have exponentially increased since Hamas’ attack in Israel in October and Israel’s response. Just ask Masha Gessen. Over the last few days the Russian-American writer has found themselves at the centre of a controversy over an award they were due to receive.
It was a play of two acts. Act one, disinformation. The well-respected site LitHub ran an article with the heading “Masha Gessen’s Hannah Arendt Prize has been canceled because of their essay on Gaza.” The problem was it hadn’t been cancelled. Gessen pointed that out, saying they had only been approached by one journalist and that as a result “inaccuracies pile up”. LitHub had to issue what every editor dreads – a correction.
The reality – act two – was more prosaic. The main sponsor withdrew their support of the ceremony. It still went ahead, just at a different venue, on a different day. This past weekend Gessen received the Hannah Arendt prize for political thought for their work documenting Russian war crimes. It was a slimmed-down event; Gessen had a police escort.
Even in the absence of more in-your-face censorship, this still feels very problematic, part of a broader ecosystem in which people are punished in some way for what they say. And all of this because of a few lines in a New Yorker article in which Gessen compared Gaza to Nazi-era ghettos.
I should state here, for whatever relevance it holds, that I am Jewish. My family tree lost most of its branches because of the Holocaust. I’m sensitive to both inaccurate comparisons with the Holocaust and to Jewish suffering and prejudice writ large. Like myself, Gessen was born into a Jewish family and is a descendent of those murdered in the Holocaust. Their piece was not, as the furore would have made me assume, a 3000-word smear piece on Israel. Instead it was a thoughtful response to Germany’s Holocaust memory, which criticised Israeli policy at points – as we all do. Gessen’s words were precise, measured, balanced. The root of the controversy was when Gessen says “the ghetto [Gaza] is being liquidated”, a part that is far from throwaway and instead accompanied by caveats and qualifications. That it could cause such outrage exemplifies everything wrong with how we are approaching conversations right now. We simply can’t handle views that we find confronting or upsetting. Our instinct is to silence and to over-correct.
We’re ending 2023 in a bad place. In every region of the world democracies are under attack, as a Freedom House report concluded. Argentina has elected a foul-mouthed president who denies the number of disappeared from the previous dictatorship. Donald Trump could be president in the USA again in 2024, even if from a jail cell, and he’s already threatened his critics. In once liberal Hong Kong Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy activist and publisher, is on the stand in what could be best labelled a show trial. Russian troops are far from losing in Ukraine. And all the while countries like Germany, which are meant to promote free speech, are getting in tangles over anything they think could remotely be perceived as antisemitic. It’s a very bad place indeed.
Of course we didn’t arrive at the Gessen moment overnight. Our inability to move an inch from whatever camp we’ve pitched our flag has been going on for some time, with Israel-Palestine and other conflicts and ways we identify.
But staying with Israel-Palestine, who exactly does it benefit? Our fear that some language might be labelled antisemitic means we’re looking in the wrong direction. Attacks on Jews are rising around the world. In Germany itself, the far-right AfD party won its first mayoral victory at the weekend. Anti-Muslim crimes are surging too. There are plenty of real, ugly attacks that we need to tackle. It’s just they’re not coming from Gessen or the New Yorker. To suggest as such distracts.
If the goal is to lessen hatred, to create more tolerant societies, the approach of trying to block out speech we don’t like doesn’t work, not least because the instinct itself is authoritarian. Pro-Palestinian voices are being silenced, as are Jewish ones. It’s minorities who always lose out.
In Gessen’s acceptance speech for the award, which was not their original one, they spoke of the power of comparisons: “Comparison is the way we know the world. And yet we make rules about things that cannot be compared to each other,” they said, adding that the Holocaust has been put in a place where it is seen as an exception, unlike anything else, beyond likening. Gessen was clearly not going to be silenced. Instead they chose the moment to pause and reflect, to open up a conversation about how language is used and to challenge the rules around speech that we’ve currently been told to obey. There are lessons to be learnt here as we head into 2024.
14 Dec 23 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Russia
The British and US governments have just jointly sanctioned two Russian intelligence operatives for their attempts to derail the democratic process through a series of coordinated cyber attacks. The US State Department is also offering a reward of up to $10M for information on the Russian hackers responsible for the coordinated cyber espionage attack, which is international and spans several years. Targets even included the former MI6 director Richard Dearlove, and more recently scientists at several nuclear facilities in the United States. But what distinguishes this recent wave of Russian cyberattacks is that they are not just targeting governments or politicians.
Civil society became a significant target for Russia’s state backed hackers, including “universities, journalists, public sector, non-government organisations and other civil society organisations”. Paul Mason, a former BBC and Channel 4 journalist, has put out a statement confirming he was targeted by these hackers. At the time his private accounts were hacked, I had been helping Mason work on an article challenging Russian propaganda narratives that were spreading during the Bucha massacre in Ukraine. Overnight we were turned into the latest circulating ‘deep state’ conspiracy theory.
The Mason hack
As we worked, I received an urgent message from Mason saying his emails with me may have been compromised. He published a statement saying he had been “targeted by a Russian hack-and-leak operation”. I then received an email from a Grayzone writer who has also written for Russian state media (Sputnik/RT), saying, “Been going over various emails and DMs of yours. Very interesting…” The writer said he thought my employer and “the academics you’re trying to target are likely to be very unhappy indeed when they hear about all this. I think we’d better talk.”
The writer said the email was not a threat. But it was clear to me I was facing an impending reputational attack to harm my career and relationships. This email didn’t resemble the right to reply that journalists usually send posing questions prior to reporting, and it made no mention of an article or outlet.
Within hours the first article hit Grayzone, a website with a pro-Kremlin stance on world events. A series of stories followed linking me to activities of which I had no knowledge and suggested that Mason and I could be part of a nefarious plot to silence critics of NATO in Russia’s war on Ukraine.
I do not, of course, help any government produce lists of people to censor. My work regularly defends transparency and free expression – including that of those I disagree with. Indeed my work often questions Western governments, but such questioning must be built on facts.
The author of the Grayzone articles apparently told Politico in 2022 that the emails at the centre of these claims were sent to the organisation anonymously via burner email accounts. The Grayzone has argued that “there is not even hard evidence that Russian hackers were the source of the leaks.”
But this week the UK and US governments issued sanctions against the individuals from hacking group Cold River (also known as Star Blizzard, SEABORGIUM, and the Callisto Group) which was reported to be behind this series of hacks. Cold River, they say, is operated by the Russian intelligence entity, the Federal Security Bureau (FSB), and “selectively leaked and amplified the release of information in line with Russian confrontation goals.”
Hacking freedom of expression
Hacking is normally discussed as a security issue. But this new form of cyber attack significantly threatens freedom of expression as I explain in my recent academic writing. Joe Burton, a professor at Lancaster University, has described this phenomenon as cyber intimidation, “a form of intentional bullying and intimidation that affects how individuals, groups and states act, including the things they do and the things they do not do. This includes the ability to express themselves free of fear of persecution or retribution.”
The UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the hackers had “failed”. But some impacts can be difficult to track rendering them invisible, particularly where they silence and suppress activism. And new research indicates cyberattacks cause “equally high levels of psychological distress as conventional terrorism and political violence,” driving political pressure that can escalate conflicts.
Today, aggressive cyber tools are increasingly available for authoritarian regimes wishing to target civil society actors. We ordinary people, not just governments are targeted with lawfare, spyware, social engineering and hacking. Russian hackers, for example, last year also reportedly doxed (malicious publication of personal information) those defending Ukraine. As Citizen Lab has shown, emails hacked from journalists and civil society are also often doctored before they are published, a phenomenon they called “tainted leaks”. Where it is hard for the Kremlin to defeat truth with lies, we see these chilling efforts deployed against researchers and journalists, eroding trust in those delivering any message counter to its interests. The ease at which this can now happen should terrify democracy defenders everywhere.
The hacking of journalists and their sources in particular undermines the ability to privately discuss, research and develop journalism. It also threatens free expression by closing down one side: Rather than contributing to debate, a pre-emptive hack against a journalist halts it.
In the case of Mason’s journalism and my efforts to contribute to it last year, the hack occurred before critical work on those defending Putin’s bloody invasion could occur. For the Kremlin’s hackers and their support alternative credible counter-perspectives cannot be allowed to rise on the left.
A crisis of trust
Conspiracy theories like these proliferate due to a deep crisis of trust in our media and political system. This has its roots in real injustices. But it is also exacerbated by the crisis facing traditional journalism that feeds a rising popularity of news ‘alternatives’. Social media’s engagement-based algorithms then tailor our feed of content to maximize popularity, which of course increases the politically divisive or fear-driven framing of content we see. This business model monetises the most misleading and toxic content, then social media companies are not consistent in responding to the content violating their policies against hacked material. Where cyberattacks are used to intimidate and silence civil society, victims may have limited power to respond. State-backed cyberattacks steal content that can be selectively used to create distrust in reliable journalists, researchers and NGO’s, or to drive anti-government conspiracy theories. Hacks also provoke government reactions that extend secrecy, roll back citizen rights or restrict vital journalism, which can be exploited by Russia to further fuel distrust of government and appetite for hacks – I call this a spiral of “secrecy hacking”. Ironically, increasing efforts by the British government to control information disclosure on national security have fed an information vacuum that provides fertile ground for misleading hacks to spread.
While I welcome sanctions against the Russian hackers, and urge all activists, journalists and scholars to be aware of their technical methods – in the long-term the solutions to Russian hacks lie in tackling our deepening crisis of trust.
07 Dec 23 | Chile, News and features, United States
It is oddly appropriate that Henry Kissinger should have died in the year that commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1973 military coup in Chile — the cataclysmic overthrow of its democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, and the end of a fleeting attempt to create a socialist society without resorting to violence, a first in the history of revolutions.
As national security advisor to President Nixon, Kissinger ferociously opposed Allende and destabilized the Chilean government by every means possible. He considered that, were Chile’s peaceful movement for social and economic justice to succeed, American hegemony would suffer. He feared that the example might spread and affect the world balance of power.
And Kissinger not only fostered the ousting of a democratically elected foreign leader, he subsequently supported the murderous regime of General Augusto Pinochet, even as the dictatorship was massively violating the human rights of Chile’s citizens, most egregiously in the cruel and terrifying practice of “disappearing” opponents.
It is these desaparecidos whom I think about now, as Kissinger is feted by a shameless bipartisan Washington elite. All these years after the coup in Chile, 1,162 men and women are still unaccounted for. The contrast is telling and significant: Kissinger will have a memorable, almost regal, funeral, while the victims of his policies have yet to find a small place on Earth where they can be buried.
If my first thoughts, when I heard the news about Kissinger’s death, were filled with memories of my missing Chilean compatriots — several of them had been dear friends — soon enough a flood of other casualties came to mind: the countless dead, wounded and disappeared in Vietnam and Cambodia, in East Timor and Cyprus, Uruguay and Argentina. The Kurds Kissinger betrayed; the apartheid regime in South Africa he bolstered; the Bangladeshi dead he belittled.
I always dreamed that a day would come when Kissinger would stand in a court of law and answer for his crimes.
It almost happened. In May 2001, Kissinger was sojourning at the Ritz Hotel in Paris when he was summoned to appear before French Judge Roger Le Loire as a witness in the case of five French nationals who had been disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship. Rather than take that occasion to explain himself and vindicate his reputation, Kissinger immediately fled France.
Nor was Paris the only city in which he was pursued. Spanish Judge Baltazar Garzón unsuccessfully requested that Interpol detain the former U.S. secretary of State to answer questions in the ongoing trial of Pinochet for human rights violations (the general was arrested in London but finally remanded to Chile, where he died, never convicted, in 2006).
Nor did Kissinger deign to respond to Argentine Judge Rodolfo Corral about the infamous and lethal U.S.-backed Operation Condor in Latin America, or to Chilean Judge Juan Guzmán about the murder of American citizen Charles Horman in the days just after the coup (a case that inspired the Costa Gavras film “Missing”).
And yet I nursed the impossible dream: Kissinger in the dock. Kissinger held accountable for so much suffering. A dream that vanished with his death.
The more reason for that trial to happen in the court of public opinion. The disappeared of Chile, the forgotten dead of all those nations Kissinger devastated with his “realpolitik,” are crying out for justice.
I do not wish that Kissinger may rest in peace. I hope, on the contrary, that the ghosts of those multitudes he damaged beyond repair will trouble his memory and haunt his history.
Whether that happens depends, of course, on us, the living, on the willingness of humanity, amid the din and deluge of praise and eulogies, to listen to the hushed, receding voices of Kissinger’s victims and vow never to forget.
This article was originally published by the LA Times and republished here with permission
05 Oct 23 | FEATURED: Katie Dancey-Downs, News and features
What do popstar Ariana Grande, filmmaker Guillermo del Torro and 90s rock sensation Garbage have in common? They’ve all joined the fight against book bans in the USA, just ahead of Banned Books Week.
Alongside more predictable figures like Margaret Atwood, Roxane Gay and Judy Blume, they are some of more than 170 artists who signed an open letter condemning book bans and calling on Hollywood to use its influence.
“We refuse to remain silent as one creative field is subjected to oppressive bans,” the artists wrote. “As artists, we must band together, because a threat to one form of art is a threat to us all.”
They make it clear that the censorship will not end with book bans. Right now, schools and libraries are facing challenges over a particular selection of books with specific themes, which can lead to local bans. How long before Hollywood faces the wrath of those who want to shield their children from what they deem inappropriate content? How long before certain stories go untold?
PEN America recently released its latest book ban report, which makes for sobering reading. In just one year, bans have increased by a third, with a total of 3,362 bans in the 2022-23 school year. The sharp rise in book bans is largely targeted at books with LGBTQ+ content, characters or authors; books about race or racism; and books about physical abuse or with themes of grief or death. The problem is most rampant in school districts in Florida, where 40% of the bans originate, totalling 1,406 cases.
A huge percentage of the school districts where bans are taking place have a neighbour in common: a chapter of one of the advocacy groups pushing for bans, one of the most prolific of which is the conservative group Moms for Liberty. One member even set up a repository of “objectionable content” called Book Looks, according to a report by Book Riot — although the website itself claims to not be affiliated with the group.
One book under the spotlight in Book Looks is teen sex education book This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson, which made the list of the most banned books last year, compiled by the American Library Association. The website distils the book down into a few sections of text in a “slick sheet” and comes with a rating of four (out of five), which is described as not being suitable for under 18s and containing “obscene references to sexual activity” or “explicit sexual nudity.” The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood receives the same score, as do The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and Forever by Judy Blume.
I spoke to Juno Dawson for the most recent issue of Index on Censorship, of which I am the assistant editor, which landed with readers in time for Banned Books Week 2023 (1-7 October). On her most recent book tour in the US, which was for her children’s picture book You Need to Chill, she had to take a bodyguard for her own safety, due to her status as a trans woman who writes about LGBTQ+ issues. After the Hilton school district in New York State received a bomb threat in March over a selection of books including This Book is Gay, Dawson’s picture book tour did not take in schools or libraries.
“One of the key issues is people aren’t actually reading the book,” she said. “And so what happens is actually they are protesting books which have appeared on other lists. Vexatious people and groups who are trying to ban books are not going to books and reading books. They are just scouring the internet for books that they should be irate about.”
A small anti-censorship community called Save Samuels publishes book challenges sent to Samuels Public Library, saying: “We won’t allow our library to be used as a political wedge to win over religious voters at the expense of our LGBTQ+ community.”
One of the challenges it has posted is to Dawson’s picture book You Need to Chill, which reads “it is specifically crafted to normalise gender dysphoria and transitioning of children” and claims that the full text has been posted on a website (which it has, regardless of copyright law) with the aim of warning other parents.
The book challenger also demands that the book be destroyed, rather than rehomed. In another challenge directed at the picture book Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middleby Nina LaCour, the challenger is asked whether they have read the book, to which they respond: “I have not.”
Dawson discussed the damage done when particular books are targeted.
“Let’s be quite clear, when people challenge a book about race, or a book about being LGBTQ, really what they’re trying to ban is being queer, or they’re trying to restrict the lives of young Black people,” she said.
The special report in our latest issue of Index explores how religion is being weaponised by the right. This Book is Gay has faced pressure from faith groups, and Dawson was quick to point out that it’s not just one group.
Another author who knows plenty about coming under fire from the religious right is Margaret Atwood, who also spoke to Index. In light of the recent uptick in book bans, she has no doubt that people are using religion in a more emboldened way, explaining that it is hard to argue with God.
“If you can accuse your enemies of heresy and blasphemy it’s somehow more potent than accusing them of not agreeing with you politically,” she said. “You’re not just disagreeing with Mr Sunak, you’re disagreeing with God.”
The Handmaid’s Tale, arguably Atwood’s most famous book, is not anti-religion but rather explores how religion is abused. She sees the latest developments in the US as being more about power than religion. For Atwood, shutting down speech on both the left and right leads to trouble.
“People who are actually interested in free speech have to realise that they cannot just defend the speech which they approve of,” she said. “Free speech does mean free speech. There are always limits to it so you can’t say ‘sign up here to become a child molester’, but you have to defend the principle and a lot of people find it difficult to defend the right of their ideological enemies to express those opinions.”
While PEN’s report outlines worrying ways in which book banners are digging in their heels, it also offers hope. Students are pushing back. Some are walking out in protest, as in the case of Hempfield school district in Pennsylvania, and others have delivered speeches encouraging people to read banned books, such as the valedictorian in Sioux City, Iowa, who then handed a copy of This Book is Gay to the school’s superintendent.
On top of the Hollywood letter in support of the freedom to read, September offered up one more positive move — California’s law banning book bans. Governor Gavin Newson signed the bill into law, which will stop schools from banning books on the basis that they contain “inclusive and diverse perspectives”. The law comes into effect immediately.
It is clear that actions like this are needed now more than ever, and for public figures, legislators and activists to continue fighting back against censorship. A collective action on 7 October, Let Freedom Read Day, where everyone is invited to take one action against book censorship, is a good start. Left unchecked, skyrocketing book bans could soar even higher.
A version of this article was originally published in Byline Times
